International Journal of Scientific and Research Publications, Volume 5, Issue 4, April 2015 1 ISSN 2250-3153 www.ijsrp.org Crossing the Cultural Boundaries: Developing Intercultural Competence of Prospective Teachers of English Shashini R. Tennekoon Pasdunrata National College of Education, Sri Lanka Abstract- Intercultural competence can be viewed as the ability to communicate successfully with culturally different others using one’s intercultural knowledge, skills and attitudes. This also is the ultimate goal of learning a foreign language. Nevertheless, this aspect of having an intercultural dimension to foreign Language learning is a completely neglected aspect of English language learning in Sri Lanka, though English is prescribed as the lingua franca or the link language by the country's constitution. On the other hand, to become a competent teacher in English, one needs to be interculturally competent as the teachers of English are constantly required to handle students in linguistically and ethnically segregated Sinhala and Tamil medium schools. Thus, this study is very significant as there have been no empirical studies conducted in the similar nature, in the country and few elsewhere in the world. The study explores the possibilities of developing Intercultural Competence of prospective teachers of English at a preservice teacher education institute in Sri Lanka, through a curriculum intervention which provides them with extensive opportunities to engage in intercultural interactions while learning English in the classroom together with their counterparts from other major ethnic groups. A specially designed intercultural syllabus was implemented in order to facilitate new understandings and insights around cultural diversity and contribute to development of intercultural competence of the student teachers improving their English language skills at the same time. Using an approach of action research the project tried to identify answers for four broad research questions by using both quantitative and qualitative data collection and analysis methods. It attempted to identify teacher trainees' perceptions on cultural diversity and understand effective strategies to develop intercultural competence by assessing their response to a specially designed intercultural syllabus. Index Terms- Intercultural competence, CALD students, prospective teachers, English Language Teaching I. INTRODUCTION n today's extremely connected and extremely divided world intercultural interactions have become a salient feature. Even in developing countries like Sri Lanka, where they have limited access to international travel and communication, people get everyday opportunities to interact and communicate transversely national borders for different reasons. As Fantani (2009) states today people are required not only to communicate across their language using their mother tongue, the interlocutors language, or a third language not common to either party, but also to make them understood in a different cultural context by using may be new behaviours and different interaction styles from their own system. Consequently, one essential survival skill of this global village is the ability to interact across cultural boundaries. The "ability to communicate effectively and appropriately in intercultural situations based on one’s intercultural knowledge, skills and attitudes" (Deardorff 2006, p. 247) is termed as 'Intercultural competence' by the scholars in the field and has gained a great deal of attention from various sectors such as sociology, psychology, management and education in recent times. On the other hand this type of interaction is everyday reality for a pluralist country like Sri Lanka, because domestic intercultural interactions between different ethnic groups is one outstanding feature of day to day communication in its polity. Unfortunately this has been an aspect neglected for a long time despite the fact that many reforms were introduced to political, educational and social spheres to promote harmony between different ethnicities. It is agreed by everybody concerned that the system of education in a country ought to address the issues in its society and must have reconstructionist elements in its approach to build a new society. Therefore, one timely need of policy makers in education in Sri Lanka is to incorporate intercultural competence as one of the major goals in every field related to education such as curriculum design, material development and teacher training etc if they want to change the mindset of the people in a conflicted society. As Deardroff (2006) rightly points out, "……Intercultural competence doesn’t just naturally occur in most people; rather, intercultural competence must be intentionally addressed through education"(p. 259). Intercultural contact is also a key issue in second language learning and teaching because one major goal of learning a second language is to communicate across cultures. Foreign language education is, by definition, intercultural (Sercu et al., 2005). Bringing a second language to the class always means connecting learners to a culture different to their own. Thus, teachers who teach a second language are faced with the challenge of promoting students' acquisition of intercultural competence through their teaching for meaningful learning to take place. The era of teaching a second language for communicative competence has long gone and today the requirement is to achieve intercultural communicative competence, because in learning a foreign language, learner is always expected to express his ideas using a language not his I
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International Journal of Scientific and Research Publications, Volume 5, Issue 4, April 2015 1 ISSN 2250-3153
www.ijsrp.org
Crossing the Cultural Boundaries: Developing
Intercultural Competence of Prospective Teachers of
English
Shashini R. Tennekoon
Pasdunrata National College of Education, Sri Lanka
Abstract- Intercultural competence can be viewed as the ability
to communicate successfully with culturally different others
using one’s intercultural knowledge, skills and attitudes. This
also is the ultimate goal of learning a foreign language.
Nevertheless, this aspect of having an intercultural dimension to
foreign Language learning is a completely neglected aspect of
English language learning in Sri Lanka, though English is
prescribed as the lingua franca or the link language by the
country's constitution. On the other hand, to become a competent
teacher in English, one needs to be interculturally competent as
the teachers of English are constantly required to handle students
in linguistically and ethnically segregated Sinhala and Tamil
medium schools. Thus, this study is very significant as there have
been no empirical studies conducted in the similar nature, in the
country and few elsewhere in the world. The study explores the
possibilities of developing Intercultural Competence of
prospective teachers of English at a preservice teacher education
institute in Sri Lanka, through a curriculum intervention which
provides them with extensive opportunities to engage in
intercultural interactions while learning English in the classroom
together with their counterparts from other major ethnic groups.
A specially designed intercultural syllabus was implemented in
order to facilitate new understandings and insights around
cultural diversity and contribute to development of intercultural
competence of the student teachers improving their English
language skills at the same time. Using an approach of action
research the project tried to identify answers for four broad
research questions by using both quantitative and qualitative data
collection and analysis methods. It attempted to identify teacher
trainees' perceptions on cultural diversity and understand
effective strategies to develop intercultural competence by
assessing their response to a specially designed intercultural
syllabus.
Index Terms- Intercultural competence, CALD students,
prospective teachers, English Language Teaching
I. INTRODUCTION
n today's extremely connected and extremely divided world
intercultural interactions have become a salient feature. Even
in developing countries like Sri Lanka, where they have limited
access to international travel and communication, people get
everyday opportunities to interact and communicate transversely
national borders for different reasons. As Fantani (2009) states
today people are required not only to communicate across their
language using their mother tongue, the interlocutors language,
or a third language not common to either party, but also to make
them understood in a different cultural context by using may be
new behaviours and different interaction styles from their own
system. Consequently, one essential survival skill of this global
village is the ability to interact across cultural boundaries. The
"ability to communicate effectively and appropriately in
intercultural situations based on one’s intercultural knowledge,
skills and attitudes" (Deardorff 2006, p. 247) is termed as
'Intercultural competence' by the scholars in the field and has
gained a great deal of attention from various sectors such as
sociology, psychology, management and education in recent
times.
On the other hand this type of interaction is everyday reality
for a pluralist country like Sri Lanka, because domestic
intercultural interactions between different ethnic groups is one
outstanding feature of day to day communication in its polity.
Unfortunately this has been an aspect neglected for a long time
despite the fact that many reforms were introduced to political,
educational and social spheres to promote harmony between
different ethnicities. It is agreed by everybody concerned that the
system of education in a country ought to address the issues in its
society and must have reconstructionist elements in its approach
to build a new society. Therefore, one timely need of policy
makers in education in Sri Lanka is to incorporate intercultural
competence as one of the major goals in every field related to
education such as curriculum design, material development and
teacher training etc if they want to change the mindset of the
people in a conflicted society. As Deardroff (2006) rightly points
out, "……Intercultural competence doesn’t just naturally occur
in most people; rather, intercultural competence must be
intentionally addressed through education"(p. 259).
Intercultural contact is also a key issue in second language
learning and teaching because one major goal of learning a
second language is to communicate across cultures. Foreign
language education is, by definition, intercultural (Sercu et al.,
2005). Bringing a second language to the class always means
connecting learners to a culture different to their own. Thus,
teachers who teach a second language are faced with the
challenge of promoting students' acquisition of intercultural
competence through their teaching for meaningful learning to
take place. The era of teaching a second language for
communicative competence has long gone and today the
requirement is to achieve intercultural communicative
competence, because in learning a foreign language, learner is
always expected to express his ideas using a language not his
International Journal of Scientific and Research Publications, Volume 5, Issue 4, April 2015 14
ISSN 2250-3153
www.ijsrp.org
because Sri Lankan culture is based on the concept of peaceful
living who hate violence. The scores reveal that almost all the
participants fall into the minimization stage of the IC
development process which supports the principle 'live and let
live'. This finding could be very informative for those who are
interested in transformative pedagogies and also policy makers of
education to take necessary steps by exploiting the fact to their
advantage.
How the Students Responded to the Intervention
One important aspect of this research was to find out the
impact of pedagogical intervention on developing intercultural
competence of prospective teachers of English participating in
this research. The intervention is of one term duration which is
approximately three months with 60 hour contact sessions out of
which only 40 hours completed up to now. Therefore it would be
difficult to identify a significant change of attitude and behaviour
of the participants at this point. However, through observation it
was understood some obvious change is taking place may be
because the participants were young and intelligent and easily
responded to 'change'. This was further attested by the findings of
the scores obtained by participants from the checklist used by the
non participant observer. Although some participants show little
or no improvement, when the overall mean score is compared the
change is evident in the group. This in fact is very much
rewarding to the attempt made and it promotes a hope a
significant impact would be manifested once the entire
intervention is completed.
Implications of the Study
The findings of the present investigation tend to support the
importance of intercultural competence in English language
teacher training as it is a neglected aspect of foreign language
teaching that was paid a lesser amount of attention but may pose
a greater challenge for the teachers in handling students coming
from linguistically and culturally diverse environments. On the
other hand it may provide the answer for the failures of the
reforms introduced so far related to promoting social harmony in
our conflicted society looking for an everlasting solution for
ethnic issues. Further, the findings of the research is very
conclusive on the fact that none of the participants considered
individuals from other ethnic groups as enemies but friends.
They have completely forgotten the fact that they belong to
different ethnic groups when working towards a common goal.
This proved that providing opportunities for extensive
intercultural interaction would help in promoting social harmony.
In addition, it is a noteworthy point that none of the student
teachers seems to be considering their cultural counterparts as an
ethnic/cultural rival but just as their "classmate" or "dorm mate"
or "friend" who shares with them the hectic routines of their
academic life. In fact, it may be possible to use this attitude as a
tool in the reduction of antagonistic attitudes between and
among ethnic groups living in Sri Lanka if hey were given more
opportunity to be mixed up breaking the segregation procedures
currently existing in all primary,secondary and tertiary education.
In addition, the subjects displayed a keen interest to learn about
cultures of each other. This 'spark' of interest could be utilized in
making the trainees literate not only in each other's cultures but
also their languages, as it was apparent during the intervention
that having a common language promotes positive
communication although there was no evidence that it plays role
in developing Intercultural Competence.
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AUTHORS
First Author – Shashini R. Tennekoon, Pasdunrata National